iOS 7, thoroughly reviewed

When we reviewed iOS 6 a year ago, we called it a "spit-and-polish" release and we stand by that assessment today. Between the new Notification Center, iCloud, and iMessage, iOS 5felt like a big, substantial release in ways that its immediate successor did not. A lack of impressive new features (the useful-but-minor Do Not Disturb, the niche Passbook, the busted Maps) and a visual design that was just past its fifth birthday both contributed to a feeling of inertia in iOS 6. There was a sense it was time for a change.

More on iOS 7

Boy, did we get one. iOS 6 had barely been out for a month before Scott Forstall, the exec who led the iOS team for as long as there had been an iOS team, left (or was ejected from) the company. Craig Federighi and Jony Ive, the Apple senior vice presidents in charge of OS X and hardware design, respectively, stepped in to fill his shoes. Today we're looking at the result of that switch.

In one sense, iOS 7 changes nearly everything about iOS. A couple of wallpapers have made the jump, but otherwise you'd be hard-pressed to find anything in iOS 7 that looks quite like it did in iOS 6. In another sense, iOS 7 is the latest in a string of incremental updates. It adds a few new features and changes some existing ones, but this doesn't radically alter the way that you use the OS from day to day. Our in-depth review explores every nook and cranny of the new operating system to show you which additions actually improve iOS, and which ones are only skin deep.

Supported devices and feature fragmentation

Before we dig in, let’s talk about installation. For the purposes of this review, we’ll be omitting any iOS features unique to the iPhone 5C and 5S (don’t worry—they’ll each be getting their own reviews soon) and focusing entirely on the devices that are in your hands right now. The full list of devices that support iOS 7 reads as follows:

The iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5C, and 5S

The iPad 2, third- and fourth-generation iPads, and the iPad mini

The fifth-generation iPod touch

Two devices that supported iOS 6 have been dropped by iOS 7: the iPhone 3GS and the fourth-generation iPod touch. Both were dropped for good reason. The iPhone 3GS was the last of the small-screened iOS devices to lack a Retina display, and both devices are stuck with 256MB of RAM where the others have at least 512MB.

The length of the iOS device support cycle remains about the same as it has been for the last couple of years. If you buy an iOS device when it’s brand new, you can (with some notable exceptions) expect three to four years of software support, even if your device won’t get every new feature promised by every new software update. While it isn’t the concern that it is for Android devices, iOS has a little fragmentation of its own. As the iOS family gets larger, that matrix of unsupported features gets more complicated. Apple provides a full breakdown that we’ll repost here with some light editing and additions:

Panorama shooting is available on iPhone 4S or later and iPod touch (5th generation). Square and video formats and swipe to capture are available on iPhone 4 or later, iPad (3rd generation or later), iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation).

Filters in-Camera are available on iPhone 4S or later and iPod touch (5th generation)—Apple lists that only the iPhone 5 and newer should be able to use this feature, but as of the GM build, our iPhone 4S supports it too. Filters in Photos are available on iPhone 4 or later, iPad (3rd generation or later), iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation).

AirDrop is available on iPhone 5 or later, iPad (4th generation), iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation) and it requires an iCloud account.

Siri is available on iPhone 4S or later, iPad with Retina display, iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation), and it requires Internet access.

Finally, the iPhone 4 and its older A4 chip do not support the following features: the 3D Flyover feature and turn-by-turn navigation in Maps; AirPlay mirroring; translucency effects throughout the OS; live wallpapers; and some visual effects including the parallax effect on the Home screen.

Ever since iOS 4.0 brought the iPhone 3G to its knees, performance on older hardware has been a concern among upgraders. We’ll talk generally about performance and battery life later on in the review, but I’ll be revisiting the iPhone 4 in particular in a separate article soon. Ars Associate Writer Casey Johnston will also be spending time with the software on an older iPad 2 and reporting back on her experiences later this week.

Installation and setup

The iOS 7 update can be installed either via iTunes or by the built-in software updater in iOS 6. You’ll need an Internet connection of some kind to download the update and to activate newly purchased or registered devices. iOS 7 will leave your device with just a tiny bit less usable space than it had under iOS 6—just how much less varies from device to device, though the iPads typically take a bigger hit than the iPhones do. If you’re already squeezed for space, iOS 7 will squeeze just a tiny bit harder.

Device

Space available (iOS 6)

Space available (iOS 7)

16GB iPhone 4 (AT&T)

13.3GB

13.2GB

32GB iPhone 4S (AT&T)

27.8GB

27.5GB

32GB iPhone 5 (VZW)

27.5GB

27.3GB

32GB iPod touch 5

27.8GB

27.3GB

16GB iPad mini (Wi-Fi)

13.4GB

13.1GB

32GB iPad 4 (Wi-Fi)

27.4GB

26.7GB

The setup screens you’ll see on an iPhone 5 are located in the image gallery below for your convenience (the iPad screens are identical, just larger), but if you’ve set up an iOS device before, the design will be the only thing new about this process. One notable change is that devices now ask you to create a four-digit passcode during setup. This is skippable, but we’re glad to see Apple encouraging its users to protect their devices even at this basic level. Apple’s Phil Schiller mentioned during the company’s September 10 keynote that about half of iOS users didn’t set up a passcode at all, and Apple would apparently like that to change, even on devices without a fancy fingerprint scanner.

If you choose to restore from iTunes, the device will prompt you to connect to the computer.

Choose to restore from iCloud, and you'll have to sign in.

Choose to set the device up as a new one, and you'll be given the option to sign in or create a new Apple ID.

The passcode prompt is new, and it's encouraging that Apple is trying to get people to use passcodes by default.

343 Reader Comments

The 15 second ads in each video basically made the videos useless to me. I watched the first one, but then another ad for IBM played for the second one. Ok, won't watch any more of those videos. I watched your sponsor's message once, I've read the ads encrusting the edges of the content, can I please just get on with viewing your content?

Performance on my iphone 4 seems the same as V6. I haven't tried running Pandora/Waze in my car yet. That's usually the biggest CPU suck I notice. I plan on upgrading to 5s anyway, so not a big deal.

Like some cars, it looks way better in person than in photos. I don't have a colorful background and a lot of the colorful default icons are nested in folders, so it's not the pastel wonderland seen in screenshots.

First off, great review lots of good information here!

Second in response here, would you even bother for others to update to iOS 7 on their iPhone 4? I have heard lots of problems with lagginess and missing lots of cool features. Is it worth it or should I wait it out for a while until I update? What do you think @Andrew?

It seems that the visual style of iOS 7 is pretty polarising... But, once you use it for a while it really starts to grow on you. I thought it was a bit gaudy at first, but after a week or so with it it's grown on me and I really like using it.

Battery life on my iPhone 5 for the iOS 7 betas was bad. I didn't worry because beta.Battery life on my iPhone 5 for the iOS 7 GM was bad. I tried not to worry because I didn't do a clean install like everybody recommended.

And now Ars is saying the exact same thing happened on their iPhone 5 even with a clean install?

Performance on my iphone 4 seems the same as V6. I haven't tried running Pandora/Waze in my car yet. That's usually the biggest CPU suck I notice. I plan on upgrading to 5s anyway, so not a big deal.

Like some cars, it looks way better in person than in photos. I don't have a colorful background and a lot of the colorful default icons are nested in folders, so it's not the pastel wonderland seen in screenshots.

First off, great review lots of good information here!

Second in response here, would you even bother for others to update to iOS 7 on their iPhone 4? I have heard lots of problems with lagginess and missing lots of cool features. Is it worth it or should I wait it out for a while until I update? What do you think @Andrew?

My piece on that will be up soon, but tl;dr what you've heard is mostly correct.

It's amazing the degree of convergence between Android and iOS. A few years back, if you looked at screenshots of an android phone (even the most advanced) and a iPhone, you could 1) immediately tell the difference between the two and 2) iOS looked obviously superior (just in terms of graphical polish). Looking at the screenshots in this review, i'm struck by how similar many of the screens look. Half the time, if I didn't know better I'd suspect they were reviewing the latest Nexus phone instead of an iOS device.Of course, I'm only talking superficial visuals, of course. But it is telling on how much Android has caught up in terms of graphical polish, and how glacial Apple has been in changing its UI.

Apple’s own promo page for iOS 7 shows how the company feels about this sort of thing in the post-Forstall era: “The [iOS 7] interface is purposely unobtrusive,” it reads. “Conspicuous ornamentation has been stripped away. Unnecessary bars and buttons have been removed. And in taking away design elements that don’t add value, suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.”

Sounds like a word for word copy of Microsoft's 'Content First' design principles of the Windows 8 Metro app user interfaces from the Build 2012 presentations. Most of the UI controls look like they have been ripped straight from Windows Phone 8.

But since this Apple we can expect everyone to gasp in awe and marvel at it's ingenuity.

Authentically DigitalIt’s about designing for the form factor, be it hardware or software. And it's about delivering interfaces free from unnecessary decoration or ornamentation.In software, traditional visuals such as beveled buttons, reflections, drop shadows and the use of faux materials such as simulated wood grain, brushed metal and glass are attempting to mimic real-world materials and objects. Microsoft is pushing those notions aside — our designers are celebrating the fact that software is digital and made of pixels and elements such as typography, color and motion-enabled experiences that aren't possible in the real world.

Do more with lessThis principle is concerned with focusing on only what is needed — reducing to the essence and celebrating content. Our research shows people don’t care about the origin of a fake light source that may display a drop shadow on an icon — it’s superfluous. A Microsoft designer’s focus is on making every element have a clear and useful purpose. No more, no less. It helps communicate what is most important so a person can focus on the task at hand.

Apple’s own promo page for iOS 7 shows how the company feels about this sort of thing in the post-Forstall era: “The [iOS 7] interface is purposely unobtrusive,” it reads. “Conspicuous ornamentation has been stripped away. Unnecessary bars and buttons have been removed. And in taking away design elements that don’t add value, suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.”

Sounds like a word for word copy of Microsoft's 'Content First' design principles of the Windows 8 Metro app user interfaces from the Build 2012 presentations. Most of the UI controls look like they have been ripped straight from Windows Phone 8.

But since this Apple we can expect everyone to gasp in awe and marvel at it's ingenuity.

Authentically DigitalIt’s about designing for the form factor, be it hardware or software. And it's about delivering interfaces free from unnecessary decoration or ornamentation.In software, traditional visuals such as beveled buttons, reflections, drop shadows and the use of faux materials such as simulated wood grain, brushed metal and glass are attempting to mimic real-world materials and objects. Microsoft is pushing those notions aside — our designers are celebrating the fact that software is digital and made of pixels and elements such as typography, color and motion-enabled experiences that aren't possible in the real world.

Do more with lessThis principle is concerned with focusing on only what is needed — reducing to the essence and celebrating content. Our research shows people don’t care about the origin of a fake light source that may display a drop shadow on an icon — it’s superfluous. A Microsoft designer’s focus is on making every element have a clear and useful purpose. No more, no less. It helps communicate what is most important so a person can focus on the task at hand.

All he's done is point out that MS and Apple are sharing a common design language. You could say that they are simply both designing in the year 2013. But his presentation that because MS are also doing this that they are copying, and yet as the same time being made out to be doing something new, is what people are downvoting. Not what he's saying, the whiny ass way he is saying it.

Apple’s own promo page for iOS 7 shows how the company feels about this sort of thing in the post-Forstall era: “The [iOS 7] interface is purposely unobtrusive,” it reads. “Conspicuous ornamentation has been stripped away. Unnecessary bars and buttons have been removed. And in taking away design elements that don’t add value, suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.”

Sounds like a word for word copy of Microsoft's 'Content First' design principles of the Windows 8 Metro app user interfaces from the Build 2012 presentations. Most of the UI controls look like they have been ripped straight from Windows Phone 8.

But since this Apple we can expect everyone to gasp in awe and marvel at it's ingenuity.

Authentically DigitalIt’s about designing for the form factor, be it hardware or software. And it's about delivering interfaces free from unnecessary decoration or ornamentation.In software, traditional visuals such as beveled buttons, reflections, drop shadows and the use of faux materials such as simulated wood grain, brushed metal and glass are attempting to mimic real-world materials and objects. Microsoft is pushing those notions aside — our designers are celebrating the fact that software is digital and made of pixels and elements such as typography, color and motion-enabled experiences that aren't possible in the real world.

Do more with lessThis principle is concerned with focusing on only what is needed — reducing to the essence and celebrating content. Our research shows people don’t care about the origin of a fake light source that may display a drop shadow on an icon — it’s superfluous. A Microsoft designer’s focus is on making every element have a clear and useful purpose. No more, no less. It helps communicate what is most important so a person can focus on the task at hand.

Battery life on my iPhone 5 for the iOS 7 betas was bad. I didn't worry because beta.Battery life on my iPhone 5 for the iOS 7 GM was bad. I tried not to worry because I didn't do a clean install like everybody recommended.

And now Ars is saying the exact same thing happened on their iPhone 5 even with a clean install?

I'm really wondering if Apple will continue to allow iOS 6 installs after that. Until now there was no way to install an older iOS once a new one was out, which also means that downgrading isn't an option. Once you upgrade, you're stuck. With iOS 7 being so different (and laggy on an iPhone 4 and eating 30% of battery life on an iPhone 5) many people will want to downgrade and not allowing this will make legions of people really furious.

There's nothing that makes you feel like a tool as upgrading, regretting it and then not being allowed to just go back to what worked fine for you a day before.

Apple’s own promo page for iOS 7 shows how the company feels about this sort of thing in the post-Forstall era: “The [iOS 7] interface is purposely unobtrusive,” it reads. “Conspicuous ornamentation has been stripped away. Unnecessary bars and buttons have been removed. And in taking away design elements that don’t add value, suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.”

Sounds like a word for word copy of Microsoft's 'Content First' design principles of the Windows 8 Metro app user interfaces from the Build 2012 presentations. Most of the UI controls look like they have been ripped straight from Windows Phone 8.

But since this Apple we can expect everyone to gasp in awe and marvel at it's ingenuity.

Authentically DigitalIt’s about designing for the form factor, be it hardware or software. And it's about delivering interfaces free from unnecessary decoration or ornamentation.In software, traditional visuals such as beveled buttons, reflections, drop shadows and the use of faux materials such as simulated wood grain, brushed metal and glass are attempting to mimic real-world materials and objects. Microsoft is pushing those notions aside — our designers are celebrating the fact that software is digital and made of pixels and elements such as typography, color and motion-enabled experiences that aren't possible in the real world.

Do more with lessThis principle is concerned with focusing on only what is needed — reducing to the essence and celebrating content. Our research shows people don’t care about the origin of a fake light source that may display a drop shadow on an icon — it’s superfluous. A Microsoft designer’s focus is on making every element have a clear and useful purpose. No more, no less. It helps communicate what is most important so a person can focus on the task at hand.

Drop shadows, shadows and reflections are actually very useful as visual aid if well done , not just eye candy.

Not to mention that MS's metro UI takes flatness and lack of cues to the extreme. It's basically lower case words followed by smaller text. No indications as to whether you have run through all the options they lay vertically.

I'd hate for Android to do that - there should be some lines or such to clearly show where options start and stop.

Hate to be 'that guy', but specifically calling out an OS review as 'thorough', I might expect some words toward particularly interesting new API features that should lead to some nice new apps. As usual, there were hundreds (thousands?) added that don't exactly lend themselves to screenshots but are very much a part of the OS and incoming experience.

I'll be hitting some of the API stuff in another piece later on. I wanted to keep this one consumer-focused and obviously it was running a little long. :-)

A "little long" you say? You just had to be thorough didnt you, you just had to show off?

I was really hoping the animations would be sped up. Their low speed was a constant aggravation during the beta period. They placated people a bit when they mitigated the annoyance of the initial unlock animation by allowing you to tap icons before the animation had ended. It was downright painful waiting for this extremely lengthy animation to end before you could tap the icon you wanted to launch.

Unfortunately there are still a lot of areas where it hasn't been fixed. The most annoying for me is in control center. On android I ran CM and tweaked the unlock slider to let me go directly into calculator and toggle the flashlight (depending on which way I swiped). It was awesome to see Apple add exactly those to shortcuts to control center. Unfortunately, the idea of quickly accessing key functions is hampered by the fact that the icons are unresponsive until control center has entirely completed its animation, including the slight bounceback effect at the top. To put into perspective how slow it is, I sometimes tap on the flashlight or calculator 3 times before it registers my tap - the previous taps ignored as the animation was still ongoing. The share menu is another annoying example; when you swipe to select your sharing method you need to wait for the animation to fully complete (including bounceback) before you can tap on whatever you want to share with.

I wouldn't mind the animations as much if the UI elements weren't completely locked out during those animations.

On what device are you running iOS7? It's super fast on my 4S and iPad mini. Maybe you just have better reflexes then I do, but I just tried 10 times in a row without success to hit one of the button while the 0,5s animation is still playing...

iOS 7 appropriates some successful ideas from the competition, but Apple is hardly the first company to be, erm, inspired by what its contemporaries are doing. There are plenty of touches here that you won’t find in Android, Windows Phone, or BlackBerry 10.

Fair enough, but surely we can be a little more critical of it in a company that has such a long history of poking fun at competitors for lack of innovation, or lifting ideas from Apple, everywhere from their advertising, to product launches, to the courtroom.

The 15 second ads in each video basically made the videos useless to me. I watched the first one, but then another ad for IBM played for the second one. Ok, won't watch any more of those videos. I watched your sponsor's message once, I've read the ads encrusting the edges of the content, can I please just get on with viewing your content?

The 15 second ads in each video basically made the videos useless to me. I watched the first one, but then another ad for IBM played for the second one. Ok, won't watch any more of those videos. I watched your sponsor's message once, I've read the ads encrusting the edges of the content, can I please just get on with viewing your content?

Looking into it... Shouldn't happen that way.

I actually had a 30 second ad on a video, stopped it after 15 seconds and went to the next video where I had another 30 second ad (32 seconds IIRC).

My doctor's office comes up as "unknown" caller. Which is terrible, because they've called me about health-related emergencies with my father before.[/quote]

That may be you're doctor's fault. The PBX can be set that way and often is on older units that don't allow individual phones to have an outside extension. My hospital does it this way because we're too cheap to update. You might talk to their office manager and see if enough people notice it to warrant changing the system.

Great review. And the battery life info is really interesting -- that has to be a mistake on Apple's part.

One note on text clarity: static screenshots of the home screen don't really capture what it looks like in use. The parallax effect means that unless you're holding the phone absolutely still, the background moves a tiny bit against the icon text. That gives more separation between the layers. There are a number of subtle things like that where a static screenshot no longer captures what it's like to use the device.

Animation speed is an interesting one. I also find many of them too slow.. not dramatically, but enough that I'd speed them up. However, the animations are all about context change. You're on the home screen, and zoom in to a folder, and then in to an app. You quit the app and zoom back out to the folder, then tap home and zoom back out to the home screen.

It may be that Apple's testing found that faster animations were bewildering to the mainstream market. The zooms may have lost the ability to communicate meaning, which is the whole point. In that case, it makes sense that Apple would prefer to slightly annoy the tech geek segment in order to better serve the mass market. And it's not like they'd add an animation speed setting.

A. Notepad doesn't look like a joke anymore, yay! And I told ya so months ago: textures have not vanished entirely. That's paper in iOS 7. Very nice paper, I might add.

B. In general, I see the typography and visual cues informed quite a bit by Google web apps like Gmail, etc. When Gmail got a design overhaul a few years ago, I initially hated it and was confused by the much subtler, totally flat buttons and arrows; two days later I realized it was obviously a better UI, and lets the user focus on productivity rather than visual distraction. Google did an excellent job there, as well as with their similar design change (uprade, if you will) to YouTube. I expect the same will happen with the iOS 7 transition experience.

C. Apps like Voice Memos have gone from a GarageBand-y UX to a Logic-y UX. No more training wheels skeuomorphism; Pro-grade controls. Same with Camera, and I'd assume the video editing controls as well.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.